THE
OTHER WOMAN (Lloyd and Hill #5)
Macmillan, London/St Martin's Press, NY (1992)
My tenth novel, published Macmillan,
London/St Martin’s
Press, NY 1992. Hardback, paperback, large print, Soundings
Audio Book (unabridged).
When the celebrity football match
was abandoned just before half-time, Bartonshire police
had no way of knowing
that the swirling, choking fog had concealed much, much
more than the striker’s fancy footwork.
But by the end of the evening
Chief Inspector Lloyd and Inspector Judy Hill were
looking for a rapist – and
a killer.
And, somewhere in Stansfield,
Melissa Whitworth was just beginning to discover the
truth about her husband…
Where did you get this plot from?
One of my earlier books! I’m not telling you which
one. This was another one that went pear-shaped about
halfway through. When you read a book, you take it for
granted that the laws of the universe are in place: the
sun will rise every day, that day will have twenty-four
hours in it, and the world will turn on its axis during
that period. The problem when you’re writing a
book is that you have to see to it that it does, and
sometimes you lose the place. When I finally realised
that in order to work, my plot required someone to be
in two places at once, I had a choice. Start writing
magic realism, or start again. Time was very, very short.
I started again, and borrowed one of my own plots. I
know that at least one person saw through this, but I
don’t think many people did. And I now can’t
even remember what the original plot was.
Has any of your published books got a plot error in
it?
Not to my knowledge, but someone might correct me! I
pride myself on tight plotting, so you can imagine that
the error in this one was something of a blow, but at
least I caught it before anyone but me had read it. Each
Lloyd and Hill that I write is written from a number
of viewpoints. Each viewpoint is used once in each chapter,
and one of the viewpoint characters must be the murderer.
These are rules that I set myself with A Perfect Match,
and I’ve stuck to them, but they can make life
very difficult. It’s like writing The Murder of
Roger Ackroyd every time, with the added difficulty of
ensuring that all the viewpoint characters have enough
worrying them to remain in contention as possibles for
the murderer for as long as possible. I suspect that
very few people would notice if I cheated, but I don’t.
And that’s why I get angry to the point of wanting
to sue people who say that I have!
So who’s said that you
cheated?
A couple of people who have reviewed me on the Web.
(See Redemption/Murder at the Old Vicarage and Births,
Deaths & Marriages/Death
in the Family for details.) Of course, the Web isn’t
the place to look for informed comment, but even ‘real’ reviewers – in
both good and bad reviews – have revealed a very
shaky grasp of what was actually going on!
But they can be confusing,
can’t
they?
Yes, the plots are very complex as a rule, so I try
hard to make sure that the actual narrative is easy
to read.
With The Other Woman, one reader found the introduction
of a number of male characters at the beginning was
a bit confusing. I’m usually very careful about
that, so I apologise, and will take even more care
in future. If you’re trying to keep abreast of
the plot, you don’t need the added hassle of
not being sure who’s who!
|
